Earn gift cards for looking at products with CheckPoints app

Add another shopping rewards app to the iPhone dial. CheckPoints, a new app that offers shoppers prizes, discounts and cash, is launching this week for the Apple iPhone. (An app for Google Android devices will come later in the year.)

CheckPoints' first two partners are Tyson Foods and Belkin, which makes video and audio accessories. Here's how it works: Bring your iPhone to the market, pick up an eligible Tyson chicken product from the frozen food aisle and scan the bar code using your phone's camera. Ca-ching -- you've now just picked up 50 points.

You can scan each item only once a day. Amass 300 points and you earn a $1 gift card for Amazon, Home Depot and CVS. You show the reward from the phone at the retailer or enter an online code, and $1 gets erased from your bill.

CheckPoints is different from Shopkick, another recent rewards app. Shopkick partners with retailers, such as Best Buy and Macy's, to offer shoppers discounts while they're in a store. CheckPoints focuses on manufacturers.

Todd DiPaola, who co-founded CheckPoints with brother Mark, says many marketers have had a hard time with online marketing -- "You don't order frozen chicken online" -- but that with mobile, there's a lot more opportunity. His goal: get the customer to pick up the product. It may not get purchased, but if the customer puts it in his or her hand, "a sale is a lot more likely."

Before CheckPoints, the DiPaola brothers had a search marketing company, Vantage Media, that bought keywords for such firms as Netflix and eHarmony to help them get discovered in search engines. They sold the firm for $150 million in 2007.

Below, a video interview with DiPaola, explaining how the new app works.

Update: An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated CheckPoints' availability. It is only offered on the iPhone, not on the iPad or iPod Touch.

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